May the Road Rise to Meet You

Sara Macel

In this remarkable pseudo-documentary and biography, Sara Macel follows her father, a traveling salesman, on his trips across the US. In popular mythology, few professions are as emblematic of this mobile, ambitious and commercially minded nation as the traveling salesman. As the Internet and outsourcing make this once ubiquitous occupation obsolete, May the Road Rise to Meet You explores the life of a businessman alone on the road. On a larger scale, this project explores the changing nature of “the road” in American culture and in the history of photography. With these images, Sara Macel creates a visual narrative of her father’s life, separate from his family structure. In the same way that a family photo album presents an idealized version of their history, these photographs are the way in which both Macel and her father want the visual narrative of his working life to be remembered.